With the spring sports season still in limbo for Evanston High School athletes, coaches are doing what they can to keep their players engaged.

It’s a tall order. With the Wyoming High School Activities Association suspending not just games but team practices as well, coaches are coming up with creative ways to keep their players healthy and in shape. Most of the spring sports teams in the state were able to log a week’s worth of practice before the shutdown, but trying to sustain that work has proven to be difficult.”

“We had a great start,” said EHS head boys’ soccer coach Brian Richins. “Our first week of practice was fantastic. Then, when everything kind of went crazy, we lost touch a little bit. I don’t know where everybody’s mind is — it’s a big distraction, so I don’t even know where we are, exactly.”

In response to the shutdown of practice, Richins and his staff created a website with a variety of interactive activities to choose from. He’s also issued team challenges to players that he hopes will continue to build a team bond while they work out individually.

“Initially, the guys were getting together and playing pretty regularly.” Richins explained. “The fields were clear, and there wasn’t a lot of direction of what we needed to do. But thankfully that has diminished. Getting the players resources and trying to figure out communication has been the big thing.”

Since soccer is a global sport, there are literally thousands of resources available on the Internet for coaches and players to choose from — from there it becomes a matter of filtering what there is and finding the resources that best match a team’s needs.

“I’ve been trying to get the information down into small pieces, so that players aren’t overwhelmed by what’s out there,” Richins said.

The spring shutdown is affecting teams in different ways, though one aspect has proven to be universal — it’s a brutal way for seniors to end their high school careers.

“I feel mostly for our seniors,” Richins said. “They’ve worked hard throughout their career, and have overcome a lot of adversity. I felt excited about the direction they were leading us in. I definitely feel the most for them.”

Richins has taken a proactive approach in his dealings with the WHSAA, the WCA and Uinta County District No. 1 activities director Bubba O’Neill.

“I sent an email to both Bubba and the Wyoming Coaches Association’s soccer rep earlier this week,” he said. “At this point, I don’t care if there’s a tournament — we just want to play. And I think that’s been the general consensus of everyone on our team. When I talk to the guys, all they say is ‘Name a time and a place, and just let us play.’ So I’m hopeful, with that attitude, that sometime in May, we can get together and play some other teams. But right now, it’s just so uncertain.”

The Red Devils have 10 seniors on this year’s roster, with a handful of them — Beckham Carver, Garet Sharp, Sean Knighton, Jake Paucarpua and Latham Chandler — returning for their fourth year with the program.

“Those seniors have been with it all the way through,” Richins said. “Those guys are kind of the drivers of that senior class.”

The Red Devils won just a couple of games last season, though that record isn’t reflective of how good that team was, according to Richins. It was a big, physical team, according to the third-year head coach, who, despite being “incredibly athletic,” were unable to overcome certain deficiencies in their game due to a lack of outdoor practices.

“Our development was stymied in regard to the weather,” Richins explained. “We could not get outside to practice. Of the 30-plus practices we have available to us in a season, we had 10 that we were able to hold outdoors. It was a really frustrating aspect to our year.”

After a rough start, the 2019 Red Devils won a pair of late-season home contests against Green River and Rock Springs. Against Star Valley in the 4A West Regional Tournament, Evanston took the Braves to overtime, eventually losing 3-2 in a shootout.

“It was a battle,” Richins said of the Star Valley game. “You’d never know it was a top-seed, bottom-seed game. You could see in that game just how much we improved by having those 10 practices outside. You spread that out over a whole season, and who knows where we might have ended up?”

The Red Devils lost players at just about every position with last season’s graduating seniors, so Richins’ work was cut out for him in building this season’s team. But what he saw in that first week or practice in early March led him to believe that this year’s team could make some noise in the 4A West.

“Just the united effort and respect they have for each other, it just feels like this group was closer as a team,” he said. “Their strength is their unity — they’ve been calling themselves a family. That’s my biggest sadness in this — they’re working on their own, trying to get better, but their biggest strength is their togetherness, and they can’t be together.”

Evanston is scheduled to host the 4A West Regional Tournament this season, starting May 14 at Evanston Middle School.

Richins spent eight years as the head coach of the Lady Devils, and is entering into his third at the helm of the boys’ program. Asked what he enjoys most about coaching, Richins said the common effort toward a common goal tops the list.

“Watching the young guys — and this was the same with the girls — watching them turn from just being quality athletes to developing into quality teammates, that’s the addictive drug that keeps you coming back as a coach,” he said. “It’s like fishing — you’re out there, and it’s windy and miserable, but you catch that one fish, and it’s all the incentive you need to keep trying. For me, that’s what it is. It’s a lot of work, a lot of effort, and can be disappointing at times. But when you see a group of guys find synergy and start working for a common goal, that’s what it’s all about.”

With the 2020 season in doubt, Richins said he understands the measures taken to ensure the safety of athletes and stop the spread of COVID-19; that said, if the team does get to play, he wants his team — especially his seniors — to make the most of the opportunity.

“My senior guys — Latham Chandler comes back to us on Friday [Mar. 6] after having his state basketball tournament taken away, gets a chance to practice with us, and then his soccer season is stalled,” Richins said.

“I just feel for those guys — they’ve worked hard their whole careers, and they’ll finish with just a wildly different experience than any other group of guys have ever experienced. I feel for them more than anybody.”

As for whether he thinks the WHSAA will be able to salvage at least a portion of the season, Richins said he’s cautiously optimistic.

“My opinion is they [the WHSAA] are going to try and get something out of this,” Richins said. “We could do a jamboree, and I really hope we can still host a regional tournament — our town could use the economic boost, it would be huge. But at the end of the day, we are just really excited to get a chance to play anything, anywhere. We’ll take almost anything at this point, and it feels like the WHSAA is feeling that same way.”